


Hate, Almost

by orphan_account



Category: Vanity Fair - Thackeray
Genre: Adultery, Age of Sail, F/F, F/M, Female Characters, Female Protagonist, Memories, POV Female Character, POV Third Person, Past Relationship(s), Past Tense
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-06-20
Updated: 2008-06-20
Packaged: 2017-10-09 08:19:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 300
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/84984
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account





	Hate, Almost

There used to be rivulets and leaves and the pulse of nature, not the city or the drum, to count their days by, and in those days Amelia used to barely listen when Becky spoke; she rather let her chatter roll over her like soft summer air, infinitely pleasant and familiar like her own skin. There'd been compliments there that had made her blush, and jokes that had made her blush all the brighter even as she laughed, but she hadn't really heard, had never foreseen what would come, or taken notice of what Becky told her of the future, between the intake of breath and the forming of a new word.

(Nobody had liked Becky at the school, but they'd had their secrets, Amelia and Becky, and such delightful ones too, never ever to be told. They lay buried, a delight in the folds of her flesh that she could not decide whether to bless or condemn.)

It was the story of Becky's own nature - to be loved up to the moment that she turned, like the tide, against you.

Years had passed and here was Becky again and now her smiles were like knives, like shards of glass beneath her skin, and Amelia could not believe anyone could do or say such things, that her George, no, that her Becky would, it wasn't done, it wasn't fair. (Above all, there was the terror that their confidences now lay on the pillow of Becky's husband, picked apart and ridiculed, and now Becky's foot was on the doorstep of her husband's bedroom and the secrets lay about her thighs, under her skirts, his to touch if only he reached out, left there years ago by Amelia's own lips.)

Around her silk twirled and flowers struggled against death on ladies' wrists.


End file.
